I don't know when it started, but the political work cadres of our army who appear in film and television dramas are always a stereotypical image of "not enough to accomplish things and more than enough to fail."These people often wear thick glasses, have a "nerdy" appearance, like to chew on words, only order the superiors to follow the horse's head, and often argue with the military commanders over whether their actions conform to the so-called "principled" or "instructions of the superiors", and in the end they are always "taught to be human" by the enemy. It should be said that these film and television dramas have exaggerated the negative image of some political work cadres in our army, and they cannot comprehensively reflect the overall situation of our military's political work cadres, and have brought a very bad impact on the overall image of political work cadres in the people's army. However, in history, the political work cadres of our army are actually not a face of eating the ancients, and everyone who has seen the novels and film and television works of "Railway Guerrillas" knows that under the command of Captain Liu Hong and Political Commissar Li Zheng, this top soldier behind enemy lines appeared haunted by the Lunan section of the Jinpu Railway, the main transport artery of the Japanese Kou, and repeatedly fulfilled the tasks assigned by their superiors, dealing a heavy blow to the Japanese puppet army. In particular, Li Zheng, who is described in the book, is brave in battle, but at the same time bold and careful, loves soldiers like a son, and is an excellent example of political work cadres in the guerrillas. In fact, in the novel, Liu Hong and Li Zheng, the two leaders of the novel who are one by one article and one armed, are respectively a combination of the images and deeds of many leading cadres of the railway brigade of the Lunan Military Region. Part of Li Zheng's image comes from the martyr Zhang Hongyi, who was the political commissar of the railway guerrillas, comrade Zhang Hongyi was ordered by his superiors to serve as the political commissar of the railway guerrillas in September 1944, but finally died on the eve of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in order to cover the transfer of troops, at the age of 33, although he served as the political commissar of the guerrillas for a short time, he proved with his life that he was worthy of the glorious title of a Communist Party member.
In the autumn of 1944, the once invincible Japanese army was no longer the proud autumn of yesterday, and as the Allies turned to counter-offensives on all fronts, Japanese imperialism was already in an embattled situation. It was under these circumstances that the Lunan Military Region of the Eighth Route Army decided to send Comrade Zhang Hongyi to the Lunan Railway Brigade (that is, the famous railway guerrillas) as political commissar in order to strengthen the struggle against the enemy.
Many readers have a fixed idea, it seems that by the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Japanese army has reached the end of the road, the puppet army has also begun to secretly find a way back for themselves, and the anti-Japanese armed forces behind our enemy are basically pressing the Japanese puppet army to fight, and the enemy who draws back and forth cannot find the north. This perception does reflect part of the situation on the battlefield behind enemy lines, but in fact the situation is much more complicated than everyone thinks. Although the Japanese puppet army has fallen into a predicament due to insufficient troops, it still has a great advantage over our army. Moreover, some of the enemies are demoralized and have the idea of leaving their own way back, but at the same time, many enemies continue to stubbornly make enemies of our army with the mentality of being trapped in beasts and fighting, and as for some of the puppet troops who have secretly made a deal with the Kuomintang diehards, under the banner of "anti-communism," they have no worries about fighting our army. Although our army in the Shandong battlefield has turned to a local counteroffensive, because both the base areas and the troops have suffered heavy losses in the arduous anti-sweeping battles of the previous two years, their vitality has not yet been fully restored; moreover, many troops also lack heavy weapons and explosives, and it is difficult to pose a serious threat to the enemy who is holding on to the strongholds. It was under such complicated circumstances that Comrade Zhang Hongyi came to the railway guerrillas.
At that time, the railway guerrillas who were active in the enemy's core occupied areas and the main lines of communication were born into death and fought bloodily under the leadership of the party, and they washed the bloody foreign trades of the devils, picked up flying cars and machine guns, hit ticket cars, hoeed traitors and rebelled against the special forces, and their reputation spread throughout the Lunan region and the Jinpu Line, and they were a legendary unit that made the Japanese puppet army afraid.
However, at this time, the railway brigade also had shortcomings in the ointment; in the long and arduous struggle, the troops sacrificed a lot, and the superiors constantly drew backbone cadres to enrich other units, and even organized the long gun brigades under the guerrilla units into the main force; when Zhang Hongyi went, the entire brigade was left with only a few dozen members of the short gun brigade, and the original sophisticated weapons and equipment were also transferred by the superiors, and the remaining weapons were not in satisfactory condition. This situation caused some members to experience mood swings and confusion, and the discipline and morale of the troops were correspondingly lax and degraded. This posed a severe challenge to Zhang Hongyi, who had taken office as a new official.
In order to restore the combat effectiveness of the railway guerrillas as soon as possible, Zhang Hongyi went deep into the troops to understand the situation of each team member in detail, so as to prescribe the right medicine. Together with Liu Jinshan, the commander of the brigade, and Wang Zhisheng, the deputy commander of the brigade, he studied and put forward the slogan of "training while fighting," and at the same time vigorously strengthened the building of party branches at the grass-roots level. As a political worker, he did not stay in the house all day, but personally went down to the training ground to lead the team members to carry out military training. Zhang Hongyi criticized some of the members of the team, especially the comrades of the short gun brigade, who believed that the railway guerrillas only needed to carry out a disguised surprise attack on the enemy and run away, and did not need to fight hard with the enemy. At his insistence, the instructor of the spear team served as an assassination instructor, and the whole team carried out assassination training, so that the team members had mastered excellent skills.
Comrade Zhang Hongyi took advantage of the opportunity of expanding the troops to vigorously introduce the rules and regulations of the regular troops into the railway guerrillas, and the 3 long gun teams and some short gun members under his jurisdiction were upgraded to the main force, and the remaining 50 team members were reorganized into a squadron of long and short guns. The leaders of the brigade revised or reformulated some rules and regulations in accordance with the instructions of their superiors, improved their institutions, and equipped them with clerks, accountants, quartermasters, grain and grain guards, and guard squads, thus taking another important step toward the regularization of the troops.
Of course, the ability of a political work cadre to be seen depends not only on his ability to propagate, organize, and mobilize, but also on his military command ability. Thanks to the efforts of Zhang Hongyi and other brigade leaders, the combat capability of the railway guerrillas has been unprecedentedly improved, and its combat scope has not only been to attack trains, destroy railways and defend their own lines of communication, but also to make rapid progress in coordinating with fraternal units, especially in position warfare and offensive battles. The head of the Lunan Military Region praised the railway guerrillas as "not only heroes and good men on the railway line, but also very well fought in position warfare and offensive battles."
Due to a series of large-scale sabotage activities launched by the railway guerrillas against the Japanese puppet army, the enemy troops on the Jinpu Line were overwhelmed and exhausted, and the Japanese army had the idea of "peace talks" after the disastrous defeat of various tactics of "sweeping," "culling," and "clearing the countryside." In December 1944, the Japanese army in Lincheng secretly appointed Hirano, a Japanese agent at Shagou Station, to negotiate with the railway guerrillas through the pseudo-chief of Shagou. After repeated study and deliberation, the guerrillas decided to send political commissar Zhang Hongyi, deputy political commissar Zheng Ti, and brigade commander Liu Jinshan to negotiate with Hirano.
After some hypocritical courtesy, Hirano bluntly put forward three conditions to the railway guerrillas: First, he asked our side not to destroy the railway, otherwise his superiors would be very unhappy; second, when the Propaganda Class of the Japanese puppet army was active along the railway, he asked us not to attack, and the Japanese puppet army "guaranteed" that they would not operate in our base area; and finally asked the railway guerrillas to help get some local specialties of Weishan Lake. Zhang Hongyi immediately refuted Hirano, first pointing out that the war of aggression against China was an unjust war launched by Japanese imperialism, which brought profound disasters to the Chinese people, and the final victory of this war will surely belong to the people of the Chinese. Subsequently, he refuted the conditions of Hirano one by one, and in turn put forward three demands: It is okay not to let the railway guerrillas break the road, but the Japanese puppet army must not sweep up our base areas; it is also possible not to fight the propaganda and support classes of the Japanese puppet army, but we must send two propaganda teams to Lincheng and Shagou stations to carry out propaganda, and the Japanese puppet army must also ensure their safety; as for the issue of purchasing local specialties, we must exchange arms and Japanese and puppet control materials. Hirano had to repeatedly stress that he had no right to answer these questions, and eventually left empty-handed. This negotiation pierced the weak nature of the Japanese army's external strength, and at the same time strengthened our belief in victory.
However, the devils were not willing to fail, and after the bankruptcy of the "peacemaking" conspiracy, the Japanese army in Lincheng immediately selected a group of armed agents to form a special team to deal with the railway guerrillas. The leader of the team is Ichiro Watanabe, a "China Pass" with great experience in counter-guerrilla warfare. This special task force specially pretended to be a railway guerrilla, took advantage of the night to wander around, went to the area where our guerrillas often operated, and whispered door to door from house to house, and the "great uncle and grandmother" were affectionate, but as soon as the masses opened the door, the agents immediately rushed up and bundled up the whole family and took them to the stronghold for severe torture. As a result, the activities of the guerrillas were greatly restricted.
For a time, the families and relatives and friends of the victims went to the railway guerrillas to complain about the misfortune of their relatives. After capturing these masses, the ferocious enemy tortured them and tried to ask them about the hidden locations of the guerrillas, underground traffic stations, and the names of underground party members, but most of the masses gritted their teeth and resisted, and everyone preferred to die rather than reveal even a little secret to the enemy. Some of the masses were tortured to death by the enemy, and even the families were not allowed to collect the corpses, and the Japanese army tried to use the brutal means of exposing the corpses to "kill one hundred people" and deter other masses from continuing to contact the guerrillas. The tragic experience of the common people has put the railway guerrillas up and down under great pressure. Zhang Hongyi, as a political commissar, was even more upset; while calming the mood of the masses, he actively discussed with other brigade leaders the method of eliminating the enemy's special forces.
Late one night in February 1945, Watanabe took more than 20 agents disguised as guerrillas from Shagou Station and sneaked to Shimoinzhuang, where guerrillas often operated. The enemy repeated the same trick, shouting door to door in a low voice, and some careless masses opened the door without distinguishing between true and false, and as a result, the agents arrested more than 10 basic people at once. But what Watanabe never dreamed of was that the railway guerrillas were stationed in Lilou Village, less than 2 kilometers away from Shimoinzhuang. Zhang Hongyi, who was extremely vigilant, heard the dog barking very badly in the direction of Xia Yinzhuang, and he immediately judged that this might be a sneak attack by the enemy!
After a brief discussion with the brigade commander Liu Jinshan, Zhang Hongyi immediately sent a long gun squad to attack Xiayinzhuang, and at the same time, predictably sent 6 short gunners to guard a dirt slope north of Li Lou, on the one hand, to prepare for reinforcement of the long gun squad, and on the other hand, to cut off the enemy's way back to Shagou. The comrades of the spear team rushed straight into the enemy's village, encountered the enemy sentry at the entrance of the village, and the two sides exchanged fire, and the enemy of the spear team exploded with a grenade, died, fled, and quickly rushed into the village. Watanabe's agents were not good at seeing the situation, and they frantically used the arrested masses as human shields, pointed guns at the masses to make them stand outside, and shouted "Don't shoot, we are ordinary people!" The agents hid in the middle, holding the crowd hostage and desperately fleeing in the direction of the sand ditch. When the agents withdrew from the village, they encountered an ambushed short gun team, and with the order of the captain, several members of the team concentrated their fire on the panicked agents, and Ichiro Watanabe, who was walking in the front, was shot and killed on the spot, and the other agents were also killed and wounded.
However, the rest of the agents continued to use the masses as a shield, and the guerrillas could not attack the enemy with full force, but could only carry out a trailing pursuit and wait for an opportunity to rescue some of the masses who broke free of the enemy's control. When the agents fought and retreated to the edge of the Shagou stronghold, the sky was already light, and the enemy in the stronghold fired wildly at our army with fire, and rushed out of the stronghold to cover the escape of the agent. When the team members saw that some of the masses had been held hostage and could not be rescued, their eyes were red, and they wanted to rush up desperately to fight the enemy to the death. However, Zhang Hongyi considered that once the enemy counterattacked, it might cause greater losses. In order to preserve his strength, he endured the pain in his heart and strictly ordered the team members to retreat immediately.
The agents also fled to the stronghold after the guerrillas had withdrawn, after killing several of the masses. The battle killed 9 agents, including Ichiro Watanabe, and only 1 of the guerrillas was slightly wounded, dealing a heavy blow to the enemy, after which the Shagou special forces no longer dared to harass them at night. Although he won the battle, Zhang Hongyi deeply felt remorse for failing to discover the enemy's conspiracy in time and for not saving all the masses, so he took the initiative to write a report to his superiors requesting punishment, and then actively comforted the families of the victims, did a good job in the aftermath, and calmed people's minds.
In May 1945, it was already early summer, and with the unconditional surrender of the German fascists, the Great Counteroffensive of the War of Resistance Against Japan was coming. The Lunan Railway Brigade returned to the mountains after finishing its reorganization training in the mountain base area and preparing to participate in counter-offensive operations. However, when the troops passed through the area of Longshantou and Daguanzhuang at the junction of Tengxian and Yixian, they were suddenly attacked by more than 2,000 Japanese puppet troops from Tengxian and Lincheng. At that time, the railway guerrilla force was only about 100 people, and if they were not careful, they could be annihilated by the enemy.
At this extremely critical moment, Zhang Hongyi decisively asked the captain Liu Jinshan to lead the main force to break through, and he himself led a squad to occupy a small hill nearby to block the enemy and cover the breakthrough of the main force. The warriors fought bravely under the command of Zhang Hongyi, continuously repelled the enemy's attacks, and successfully attracted nearby enemies to their surroundings, creating favorable conditions for the main force to break through. After completing the task of blocking, Zhang Hongyi ordered the squad leader to take the whole class with him, leaving himself and 2 guards to cover. Where the squad leader and other soldiers were willing to leave the political commissar to break through first, everyone pleaded with Zhang Hongyi to break through together, but Zhang Hongyi sharply ordered that the squad leader must obey the order, and in desperation, the squad leader could only take everyone to go first.
Zhang Hongyi then commanded 2 guards to gradually lead the enemy in another direction, and the 2 guards wanted to cover Zhang Hongyi with their bodies, deliberately blocking in front of him, but each time they were pulled away by him. Zhang Hongyi, who was walking at the end, was unfortunately hit in the left chest by the enemy during the battle, and fell to the ground, he ordered 2 guards: "Leave me alone, you go first!" I cover! But this time, the 2 guards disobeyed: "If you want to break through together, if you want to die, you will die together!" So he desperately set him up to break through, because it was too late to bandage, Zhang Hongyi lost too much blood during the breakout, and when he met with the brigade, he was almost out of luck. At this last moment, he did not think too much about himself, but first stopped some impatient fighters who wanted to go out to find the enemy desperately, and he gave the last order in a weak voice: "Don't go to the enemy because of my sacrifice, because recklessness will bring great losses to the revolution." ”
He then explained his work to the comrades word by word and forwarded the confidential documents he was carrying to the corresponding comrades one by one. Everyone endured the grief and tears, and assured him that they would do their job well, meet the arrival of the great counteroffensive, and live up to his expectations. It was not until the time of Comrade Zhang Hongyi's death that he talked about his family affairs: "Because my brother and I both left home at an early age to participate in the revolution, we have not been able to fulfill our filial piety to the eighty-year-old mother of the family, and I want to ask my comrades to help bury her after a hundred years of her old age." That is my last wish. Seeing that everyone nodded with tears, Political Commissar Zhang Hongyi put his mind at ease. But then he fell into a coma again, although the leader of the Lunan Military Region instructed to go all out to rescue him, but the conditions at that time were simple, and his injuries were too serious, and he eventually died tragically.
Zhang Hongyi, who died on the eve of victory, could not see the final victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, but the railway guerrillas, inspired by his spirit, participated in the great counteroffensive in coordination with the main forces, and finally forced the Japanese Kobayashi armored train unit to surrender to our army, thus writing the most glorious stroke in the glorious history of this unit.